Or so it seemed.

  'We're talking here a posse that's maybe the biggest one in America,' he said.

  'Right here in our own little precinct, huh?' Kling said.

  'Bigger than Spangler.'

  'Uh-huh.'

  'Bigger than Waterhouse.'

  'Uh-huh.'

  'You know Shower?'

  'I know Shower.'

  'Bigger even than Shower,' Herrera said. 'I'm talking about dope, white slavery, and gun-running. Which this posse is muscling in on all over the city.'

  'Uh-huh,' Kling said.

  'I'm talking about a big dope deal about to go down.'

  'Really? Where?'

  'Right here in this precinct.'

  'So what's this big posse called?'

  'Not so fast,' Herrera said.

  'If you've got something to tell me, tell me,' Kling said. 'You're the one who came here, I didn't come knocking on your door.'

  'You're the one who wanted me to back your story about . . .'

  'That's a thing of the past. They're convinced downtown that I acted within the . . .'

  'Anyway, it don't matter. You owe me.'

  Kling looked at him.

  'I owe you? he said.

  'Correct.'

  'For what?'

  'For saving my life.'

  'I owe you for saving your life?'

  'Is what I said.'

  'I think those baseball bats scrambled your brains, Herrera. If I'm hearing you correctly . . .'

  'You're hearing me. You owe me.'

  'What do I owe you?'

  'Protection. And I'm not gonna let you forget it.'

  'Why don't you take a walk?' Kling said, and picked up the Ballistics report.

  'I ain't even talking cultures,' Herrera said.

  'That's good, 'cause I'm not even listening.'

  'Where if you save a person's life, you are responsible for that person's life forever.'

  'And which cultures might those be?' Kling asked.

  'Certain Asian cultures.'

  'Like which?'

  'Or North American Indian, I'm not sure.'

  'Uh-huh,' Kling said. 'But not Hispanic'

  'No, not Hispanic'

  'You're just muscling in on these cultures, correct? The way this Jamaican posse is muscling in on dope and prosti . . .'

  'I told you I ain't talking cultures here.'

  'Then what the fuck are you talking, Herrera? You're wasting my time here.'

  'I'm talking human decency and responsibility,' Herrera said.

  'Oh, dear God, spare me,' Kling said, and rolled his eyes heavenward.

  'Because if you hadn't stopped them Jakies . . .'

  'Jakies?'

  "Them Jamaicans.'

  Kling had never heard this expression before. He had the feeling Herrera had just made it up. The way he'd made up his cockamamie Asian or North American Indian cultures that held a man responsible for saving another man's life.

  'If you'd have let them Jakies kill me,' Herrera said, 'then I wouldn't have to be worrying they would kill me now.'

  'Makes perfect sense,' Kling said, shaking his head.

  'Of course it makes sense.'

  'Of course.'

  'This way I'll probably have a nervous breakdown. Waiting for them to kill me all over again. You want me to have a nervous breakdown?'

  'I think you already had one,' Kling said.

  'You want them Jakies to kill me?' Herrera asked.

  'No,' Kling said honestly. If he'd wanted them to kill Herrera, he'd have let them do it the first time around. Instead of getting a tooth knocked out of his mouth. Which he still hadn't gone to the dentist to see about.

  'Good, I'm glad you realize you owe me,' Herrera said.

  Kling was neither a Buddhist monk nor a Hindu priest nor an Indian shaman; he didn't think he owed Herrera a goddamn thing.

  But if a strong Jamaican posse really was about to do a big dope deal right here in the precinct . . .

  'Let's say I do offer you protection,' he said.

  * * * *

  5

  The oriental gangs in this city had difficulty pronouncing his name, which was Lewis Randolph Hamilton. Too many L's and too many R's. The Hispanic gangs called him Luis El Martillo. Which meant Louie the Hammer. This did not mean that his weapon was a hammer. Hamilton was strapped with a .357 Magnum, which he used liberally and indiscriminately. It was said that he had personally committed twenty-three murders during his several years in the States. The Italian gangs called him Il Camaleonte, which meant The Chameleon. That was because hardly anyone knew what he looked like. Or at least what he looked like now.

  There were Miami PD mug shots of Hamilton wearing his hair in an exaggerated Afro, mustache on his upper lip. There were Houston PD pictures of Hamilton wearing his hair in Rastafarian style, so that he looked like a male Medusa. There were NYPD pictures of him with his hair cut extremely short, hugging his skull like a woolly black cap. There were LAPD pictures of him with a thick beard. But here in this city, there were no police photographs of Lewis Randolph Hamilton. That was because he'd never been arrested here. He'd killed eight people here, and the underworld knew this, and the police suspected it, but Hamilton was like smoke. In Jamaica, as a matter of fact, he had for a number of years been called Smoke, a name premised on his ability to drift away and vanish without a trace.

  Hamilton's posse was into everything.

  Prostitution. Exclusively Mafia in the recent dead past, increasingly Chineseever since a pair of lovely sisters named Tina and Toni Pao moved from Hong Kong to San Francisco and began smuggling in girls from Taiwan via Guatemala and Mexico, their operation expanding eastward across the United States until it was now fully entrenched and because of its local-tong and overseas-triad connections - virtually untouchable here in this city. Hamilton had discovered the enormous profits to be made in peddling ass on carefully selected, police-protected street corners. Nothing high-class here. No Mayflower Madam shit. Just a horde of young, drug-addicted girls standing out in the cold wearing nothing but Penthouse lingerie.

  Gun-running. The Hispanics were very big on this. Maybe because, like cab drivers coming back from the airport, they didn't like to ride deadhead. Bring up a load of Colombian coke, you didn't want that ship going back empty. So you filled it with guns - high-powered handguns, automatic rifles, machine guns - which you then sold at an enormous profit in the Caribbean. Hamilton already knew how to bring up the dope. He was now learning - way too damn fast to suit the Hispanics - how to send down stolen guns.

  And, of course, drugs.

  Unless a gang - any gang, any nationality, any color - dealt drugs, then it wasn't a gang, it was a ladies' sewing circle. Hamilton's posse was heavily into dope. With enough weaponry to invade Beirut.

  All of this was why the slants, the spics and the wops wanted him dusted.

  Which amused Hamilton. All those contracts out on him. If they didn't know what he looked like, how could they reach him? Unless one of his own people turned, there wasn't no way anybody could be out there squatting for him. All highly amusing. Their dumb gang shit. Contracts. What was he, a kid playing in the mud outside a shack? The concept of a Hollywood hood with a broken nose looking high and low for him made him laugh.

  But not today.

  Today he wasn't laughing.

  Today he was annoyed by the way three of his people had mishandled the José Herrera thing.

  'Why baseball bats?' he asked.

  The word 'bats' sounded like 'bots.'

  Very melodious. Heavy bass voice rumbling up out of his chest. Bots. Why baseball bots?

  A reasonable question.

  Only one of the three was standing there in front of him. The other two were in the hospital. But even if the cop hadn't jammed them, they'd have been denied bail. Assaulting a police officer? Terrific. The one who'd been sprung looked shamefaced. Six feet three inches tall, weighing in at two hundred and twelve pounds, big hands hanging at his sides, he looked like a schoolboy about to be birched. Like back in Kingston when he'd been a kid.

  Hamilton sat there patiently and expectantly.

  At an even six feet, he was smaller than the man he was addressing. But he emanated even in his reasonableness a sense of terrible menace.

  He turned to the man sitting beside him on the couch.

  'Isaac?' he said. 'Why baseball bats?'

  The other man shrugged. Isaac Walker, his confidant and bodyguard - not that he needed one. A confidant, yes. It could get lonely at the top. But a bodyguard? Wasn't anyone ever going to take out Lewis Randolph Hamilton. Ever.

  Isaac shook his head. He was agreeing that baseball bats were ridiculous. Baseball bats were for spics out to break a man's legs. For chasing after a man's woman. Very big thing with the spics, their women. There were women attached to the posse, of course. Camp followers. There when you needed them. But nobody was going to get into a shootout over a mere cunt. Big macho thing with the spic gangs, though. Even the Colombians, who you thought would have more sense, all the fuckin' green involved in their operation. Mess with a spic's woman, it wasn't maybe as serious as messin' with his shit, but it was serious enough. Break the man's legs so he couldn't chase no more. But who had given these three the order to use baseball bats on Herrera?

  'Who told you baseball bats, man?' Hamilton asked.

  It came out 'Who tole you baseball bots, mon?'

  'James.'

  Like a kid telling on his best friend.

  James. Who was now at Buenavista Hospital where they had dug the cop's bullet out of his shoulder. At the hospital, James had whispered to Isaac that he'd knocked out one of the cop's teeth. He'd sounded proud of it. Isaac had thought he was a fucking dope, messing with a cop to begin with. A cop showed, they should have split, saved Herrera for another day. Which they were having to do anyway. Jump up and down on a cop? Had to be fucking crazy. James. Who, it now turned out, had told them to go after Herrera with baseball bats.

  'James told you this?'

  Hamilton speaking.

  'Yes, Lewis. It was James for certain.'

  The Jamaican lilt of his words.

  Andrew Fields was his name. Giant of a man. He could have broken Hamilton in half with his bare hands, torn him limb from limb, the way he'd done other people without batting an eyelash. But there was deference in his voice. When he said 'Lewis,' it somehow sounded like 'sir.'

  'Told you to use baseball bats on the man?' Hamilton asked.

  'Yes, Lewis.'

  'When I specifically said I wanted the man put to sleep?'

  'That message did come down, Lewis.'

  'But you used baseball bats anyway,' Hamilton said.

  Andrew was hoping he believed him. He didn't want Hamilton thinking that he himself, or even Herbert, had been acting on their own initiative. Had somehow taken it in their heads that the way to do the little spic was with ball bats. Herbert had been the third man on the hunting party. The one who'd thrown his bat at the cop. The first one the cop had shot. He'd had nothing at all to do with deciding on the ball bats, James had made that decision. Maybe because the person they were about to do was a spic and spics understood baseball bats. But if the whole idea was to put the man to sleep, then what difference did it make how they did it? Was he later going to remember in his grave that it was a gun or a knife or three ball bats had done him? James's reasoning on this had eluded Andrew. But in a posse, as in any kind of business, there were levels of command. The man had said ball bats, so ball bats it had been.

  'Was it James's notion to merely harm the man?' Hamilton asked.

  'I think to box him,' Andrew said.

  'Not just to break a few bones, eh?'

  'He told us you wanted the man boxed, Lewis.'

  'Then why baseball bats?' Hamilton asked reasonably, and spread his hands before him, and lifted his shoulders and his eyebrows questioningly. 'If we are looking to put this man in a box in a hole in the ground, why take the long way home, Andrew, why take the dusty road by the sea, do you understand what I'm asking? Why not short and sweet, adios, amigo, you fuck with us, you kiss your sister goodbye? Am I making my point?'

  'Yes, Lewis.'

  'Did James have an explanation? Did he say I want to use bats for this or that reason?'

  'He didn't offer no reason, Lewis.'

  'Oh my my my,' Hamilton said, and sighed, and shook his head, and looked to Isaac for possible guidance.

  'Shall I go to the hospital and ask him?' Isaac said.

  'No, no. The man's been denied bail, there's a policeman outside his door. No, no. Time enough to talk to him later, Isaac'

  Hamilton smiled.

  The smile was chilling.

  Andrew suddenly did not want to be James. It seemed to Andrew that the best thing that could happen to James was to be sent away for a long, long time. Where Hamilton could not get to him. Although Andrew couldn't think of a single prison in the United States that Hamilton could not reach into. Andrew didn't know why Hamilton had wanted the little spic killed, nobody had told him that. But he knew James had fucked up badly and the spic was still out there walking around.

  'Andrew?'

  'Yes, Lewis.'

  'I'm very troubled by this.'

  'Yes, Lewis.'

  'I send three men to do one little spic . . .'

  'Yes, Lewis.'

  '. . . a man who could have been blown away with a fucking twenty-two ...'

  Those eyes.

  Blazing.

  'But instead the three of you decide to use . . .'

  'It was James who . . .'

  'I don't give a fuck who! The job wasn't done!'

  Silence.

  Andrew lowered his eyes.

  'Do I have to go do this myself?' Hamilton asked.

  'No, Lewis. You still want the job done, I can do it.'

  'I want the job done.'

  'Fine then.'

  'No mistakes this time.'

  'No mistakes.'

  'We are not trying to win the World Series, Andrew.' A smile.

  'I know, Lewis.'

  'Go sing the man his lullaby,' Hamilton said.

  * * * *

  The social worker who had handled the adoption for the Hoddings was a woman named Martha Henley. She had been working for the Cooper-Anderson Agency, a private adoption agency, for the past fourteen years now. In her late sixties, a trifle stout, wearing a dark brown suit, low-heeled walking shoes, and gold-rimmed eyeglasses that demanded to be called spectacles, she warmly greeted the detectives at ten o'clock that Monday morning, and offered them seats on easy chairs facing her desk. A bleak wintry sky edged with skyscrapers filled the corner windows of her office. She told them at once that she loved children. She told them that nothing brought her greater happiness than to find the right home for a child needing adoption. They believed her. They had told her on the telephone why they wanted to see her. Now she wanted to know why they felt information about the adoption of Susan Hodding was important to their case.

  'Only in that it's another possible avenue,' Meyer said.

  'In what way?'

  'We're investigating two possibilities at the moment,' Carella said. 'The first is that the murders may have been felony murders - murders that occurred during the commission of another crime. In this case, a burglary. Or a rape. Or both.'

  'And the second possibility?'

  She was making notes on a lined yellow pad, using an old-fashioned fountain pen with a gold nib. She was left-handed, Meyer noticed. Wrote with her hand twisted around peculiarly. Meyer figured she'd been growing up when schoolteachers were still trying to change all lefthanders into right-handers. He imagined this had something to do with Good vs. Evil, the right hand of God vs. the sinister left hand of the Devil. All bullshit, he thought. Those exercises at changing a person's handedness had in many cases led to stuttering and a whole carload of learning disabilities. Carella was still talking. Mrs Henley was still writing.

  '. . . who wanted the sitter dead, the Flynn girl. In which case, the murder of the infant was a side-effect, if you will, an offshoot of the other murder. That's the second possibility.'

 

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